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Relaxed Pace with Great Music! Broadway in Chicago Presents The Band’s Visit at the Cadillac Palace Theatre (Through September 15, 2019)

In 2007, The Band’s Visit was first released as a film. In 2017, it opened on Broadway. The next year, it won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical. And now, in September 2019, it opens at the Cadillac Palace Theatre.

It is 1996 and an Egyptian orchestral band travels to Israel to play at an Arab Cultural Center. “You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t that important.” This a great example of the humor of this show. The band ends up in the wrong town due to a miscommunication. They enter a café where they learn of their error. Thankfully, the owner of the café offers them hospitality and a place to stay until the next bus leaves the next day. It’s a great slice of life story about a small town in Israel, Bet HaTikvah, in the middle of the desert.

The characters are all very real to life and the story moves along at a relaxed pace. It also has a good song to dialog ratio of about 50/50. At about 105 minutes, it’s a bit long to not have an intermission. It’s a feel good story without any politics or violence.

The music in this show is excellent. Some of the musicians are seated off stage, but many of them are on stage and have lines to speak. The instruments played on stage are violin, cello, clarinet, darbouka, oud, and a trombone. They play traditional Egyptian music and a little Chet Baker.